The present invention relates to a double bearing type reel and, in particular, to a double bearing type reel of a generally large size including a brake device which is disposed on the rotary central shaft of a spool.
In general, in a double bearing type reel of a large size for use in trolling and the like, there is known to incorporate a brake device which is capable of applying a brake force to the rotational movement of a spool in a fishing line playing-out direction and which is disposed on the side surface of a spool with a brake force adjusting member disposed outside of a reel main body. However, this type of reel does not give much consideration to a fishing operation which is executed under severe environmental conditions. Therefore, seawater is likely to enter and attach itself to a brake plate employed in the brake device during use to thereby lower the braking performance thereof.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the Japanese Utility Model Kokai Publication No. Sho. 63-75174 discloses a double bearing type reel wherein a drag disk and brake disk forming a brake device is separated from other components to provide a watertight construction for the brake device.
However, in the double bearing type reel disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese Utility Model Publication, since the brake device and a handle drive device are disposed on the same side of a reel main body, the weight of the reel is biased on the side to deteriorate stability of the reel and the reel main body is hard to be grasped and held by hand during the reel operation to deteriorate the operationability of the reel.
Further, the state change of the reel, that is, change from a given brake force applying state to a spool free state is executed by an adjusting operation to reduce the brake force, and similarly change from the spool free state to the given brake force applying state requires an adjusting operation to increase the brake force, which makes it difficult to change the state of the reel rapidly. That is, a series of these operations cannot be executed smoothly, which results in a poor operationability.